It Is Finished...

I have been working on the "face of Jesus" for six weeks... now granted there have recently been a few things that kept me from getting into my studio.  We had a one week trip to California for a wedding as well a 5 day break as we hosted some house guests.  Along with the typical household cleaning routines and meal prep for another guest, my time of sewing was severely inhibited.

None the less... I finally have Jesus done!  

Now for the quilting... 

FMQ is what I have in mind to give to his hair and beard texture, as well as his cloak. I believe the background will have stippling... but I won't really know until I get there.

I have had several questions about "how did you do that?"  I started with the photograph (with center lines marked) 

and then marked out a grid...

From there I started placing squares on my design wall, working from the center out, one row at a time... 

Since I had decided to use one color for the background, I then started placing that on the wall...

To help me keep track of what row I was actually working on I pinned the picture onto the wall, and used straight pins to hold a ruler in place...

Once I had the picture complete, I would take a picture, make a few changes in shading and then take another picture... I repeated the process until I was satisfied with the final result.

There is not as much detail as I had hoped to achieve, but the quilting helped a lot!

Here are a few close up shots...

All in all, I am pleased with it.  My customer is happy with it as well - and that is what is most important... a happy customer!

I have now moved on from  1" finished squares to some projects with larger pieces of fabric to be ready for the Farmer's Market on Saturday, July 2.  

It is always so challenging to try to "guess" what the visitors will want... that is why I offer a variety of items... quilts, wall hangings, table runners, bibs, bags, therapeutic rice bags, wine bags, tissue covers, plastic bag holders... and more!

Have you ever done a show or market?  

What sort of items do you sell?  

What are some of your more popular items?

Happy summer!

Melva

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